It seemed that his first and last affair of honour was going to be as unusual as everything else at Comstock Manor. The Earl and Elmstead’s second had walked the grounds on the previous afternoon and declared them hopeless for battle. And though the rain seemed to have stopped, short of consulting an almanac, it was difficult to judge the rising of the sun, against the perpetual mist rising from the sodden ground.
After some discussion, it had been decided that the fight would occur at six o’clock in the ballroom, where the morning light would be shining through the eastern windows. Since it was well before breakfast, the rest of the guests would still be asleep and the matter could be settled in private with little interference or interruption.
Despite the fact that the participants had been sworn to secrecy, Benedict arrived in the ballroom at half past five to find a crowd gathering along the wall, awaiting the commencement of the action. ‘I was under the impression that this was a matter to be settled between gentlemen and not a spectator’s sport,’ he said to Comstock, who was staring with disapproval at the guests, munching their toast while the footmen carried in the swords.
‘I would swear that no one spoke of it, but as with everything else in this house, news travels fast,’ the Earl replied.
‘There is nothing to be done, I suppose,’ Benedict said, staring in disapproval at the gawkers. ‘Have you found someone to stand as surgeon for us?’
‘I managed to send a message to our local doctor,’ Comstock said. ‘But he refused to take any part in patching up men who are intent on doing each other injury. He says it only encourages foolishness.’
‘Normally, I would consider that extremely good sense,’ Benedict replied. ‘But since it might be my hour of need, I find it hard to be so understanding.’
‘I have some small knowledge of medicine,’ Comstock said. ‘I would advise you not to get stuck in anything vital. But I am quite handy with a needle and thread, as long as the cuts are not too deep.’
Benedict grimaced. ‘It will have to do, I suppose.’ Then, he added, ‘It was never my intent that it should go this far.’ By the looks of it, Elmstead had not wanted this either. His normally red face was pale in the morning light, his volatile manner quiet. He stared down the length of the room at Benedict, trembling slightly, either from rage or from the fear of what lay ahead. Had he spent the night lying awake, listening to the hours tick by as the inevitable had got closer, expecting a confession, or perhaps an apology?
‘These things are much harder to stop than they are to start,’ Comstock said, reading his thoughts. ‘And it appears that Lady Elmstead has already decided the outcome.’ He cast a quick glance in her direction. ‘I am sure it is not the most encouraging thing to see one’s wife wearing black on a morning like this.’
‘Wishful thinking,’ Benedict muttered. ‘Even if he beats me, he will gain nothing by this. She is not likely to be shamed and shouted into fidelity, nor will she love him any better for expressing his doubts about her to a houseful of people.’
‘Let us hope that the scandal attached to this morning teaches him to keep his suspicions to himself.’ Comstock consulted his watch. ‘It is almost time to begin. I must ask you, one last time, if there is any way, short of violence, to settle this matter.’
Benedict shook his head. ‘Let us get it over with.’
Comstock walked the length of the ballroom to confer with the other second. When it was clear he had no offer of apology to convey, they went to the footmen and began to check the weapons, testing blades and balance to make sure that the combatants had equal chance, beyond their skill.
As he waited, Benedict stared at the waiting crowd, searching for the one face he did not see. Lenore was there at Lady Elmstead’s side, but it was impossible to decide if she was playing the role of worried mistress or simply taking one of the few opportunities available to comfort her lover when no one would be the wiser for it.
But there was no sign of Abigail Prescott. He could not decide if this pleased or disappointed him. On one hand, he did not want her to be a witness to violence. On the other, if there was even the smallest chance that he might die, he wished that she was there to look upon him as he passed.
He wondered if it would be too dramatic to request that she be brought to his side, should the worst occur. Then he decided against it. If the goal was to protect her, he could not demand that she weep over his bleeding body. The appropriate thing to do would have been to put his feelings for her into a letter which could be delivered in the event of his death or burned if he survived. But last night, he had been feeling much more confident about his chances and had not even considered it.
Comstock was returning with a sabre and he took it, running through the parries mechanically, prime to octave and back. Then he experimented with a lunge, advancing and retreating down the length of the ballroom to loosen his muscles.
The crowd had grown quiet. He lowered his point and walked down the row of them, staring into each face in turn. They had thought themselves bored enough to want bloodshed and eager to see a great man stumble. But now that the moment had arrived, they flinched from his gaze and looked away, ashamed.
Then the long case clock in the hall was striking six and Comstock was approaching to walk him forward to meet his opponent. Suddenly, there was a rustling in the crowd. People whispered and nudged each other, and heads turned from him as if they had just discovered something far more interesting than life or death. Then, a voice above them cried, ‘Wait!’
Benedict turned to see Abby, staring down at them from the musician’s gallery. Unlike Lady Elmstead’s sombre black gown, she was wearing her scarlet dinner dress. Her black hair was long and loose as it had been when he’d bedded her. Arriving as she had, on the last stroke of six, Sarah Siddons could not have made a more dramatic entrance, nor better captivated the crowd.
Even from the length of half a ballroom, he could see evidence of the troubles she had described to them in his bedroom. She was paler than she had been when they’d last spoken. Her features were pinched, her brow furrowed from the pain in her head. And he saw her tremble under the gaze of the party, before she gathered strength and courage to speak again.
‘There has been a horrible misunderstanding,’ she announced, to the spellbound people below her. ‘Lord Elmstead, if you distrust your wife because of a misplaced handkerchief, know that she did not receive it from the Duke of Danforth. She got it from me.’
There was an appropriate gasp from the audience.
She continued. ‘I must have loaned it to her by mistake, for I let her borrow one just the other day.’
It was a lie. She should not have to lie for him. But she was too far away for him to run to her and cover her mouth before she revealed the truth.
‘And how did you come to have Danforth’s linen?’ Elmstead demanded, staring up at her, some of his bluster returning.
‘Miss Prescott...’ Benedict said in a warning tone, willing her to be quiet.
There was no way to stop her now. He had first been drawn to her for what he had thought was fearlessness. Though she had sworn that such courage did not exist, she was demonstrating it on his behalf. She took a dramatic pause, waiting until the nerves of the people below had stretched almost to the breaking point. Then she announced, ‘I have it because I was with him two nights ago.’
The room gasped, then leaned forward, fascinated.
‘I beg your pardon?’ This shocked exclamation came from her own mother, who was probably hoping that she was not about to hear her daughter making the family even more notorious than it already was.
‘We have been spending much time together since I arrived,’ Abby hurried on. ‘Every spare minute. I was with him until dawn on the night in question. He could not tell you because he did not wish to dishonour me. I took his handkerchief as a token. And then, foolishly, I lost it.’
La
dy Elmstead gave a sigh of relief and dropped to the floor in a swoon. But her reaction was largely unnoticed except by Lady Comstock who produced a hartshorn from her pocket and went to revive her.
‘Miss Prescott, I do not need you telling tales to protect me,’ Benedict called up to her. Years of practice had made him a master of disguising the truth. He made sure his tone implied that she was lying, though his words revealed neither truth nor falsehood.
‘I am not telling tales,’ she announced to the others. ‘I am telling the truth. I spent the whole night in the bedroom of the Duke of Danforth and we were doing exactly what you suspect,’ she repeated with more vehemence. Then, she looked to her horrified mother. ‘I know it was very improper. But...’ Then she gave a helpless shrug. ‘And do not dare to insist that I marry him,’ Abby announced, before her mother could turn her rage on the Duke. ‘I refused him in London and I refused him again here.’
The room gasped.
‘But you will not refuse me a third time,’ he announced, making an effort to salvage what was left of her honour.
‘I will indeed,’ she said, turning to face him. ‘You may be a duke, but you cannot force me to marry you.’
‘Abigail, be reasonable,’ he said. ‘You have done enough.’ And now, let me do something for you. Even if she refused him again later, an acceptance now might mitigate the scandal.
‘I know what you expect from me,’ she said, ‘and I cannot possibly give it to you.’
The crowd leaned in again, expecting some answering confession that would reveal what more he had expected, if he’d already got her to sacrifice her virtue. But they knew far too much about his business already, without learning every last secret he shared with her. ‘Abby,’ he said. ‘We cannot settle this here.’
‘It is already settled,’ she said, sadly. ‘We have nothing more to say to each other.’ In the silence that followed, Benedict could almost feel the eagerness of the people around them, waiting for her to exit the stage so they could discuss and dissect what they had just seen.
He turned, scanning the room for an entrance to the gallery. There should be stairs he could bound up, so he might take her in his arms and kiss her until he had changed her mind. But as with everything else in Comstock’s benighted house, the staircase was not where it was supposed to be. Before he could find a way to get to her, she had obliged the crowd and made her exit, leaving only the sound of her mother’s tears and the distant slam of a door.
Chapter Twenty
‘It will be all right, Mama.’ Abby patted her mother’s hand, trying to console the inconsolable and fighting the urge to do it in time to the rise and falls of her mother’s wailing. The woman had been crying since they had retreated to her room an hour ago, and the tears showed no sign of stopping. Abby had heard that it was sometimes necessary to slap hysterics, to cure them. But it did not seem right to add physical violence to the mental anguish she had already inflicted.
‘We are ruined, I tell you. Utterly ruined,’ her mother choked out, between sobs. ‘It is one thing for people to assume that you are dishonoured, and quite another for you to...’
Announce in a crowded room that I am a strumpet?
It was kind of her mother not to finish the accusation, even if it was because she could not speak around a fresh flood of tears. Abby released her and went to the cupboard in the corner to fetch a dry handkerchief from the pile of linen that the maid had not finished packing. The roads were still muddy, but since the rain had stopped, they had decided to take their chances, rather than spending another day as objects of curiosity for Lady Comstock’s guests.
Surprisingly, it mattered very little to her what they did. She had heard that confession was good for the soul and apparently it was true. Once one had announced the darkest, most ruinous secret of one’s life to a crowd of talebearing strangers, one had nothing left to fear from the sort of ordinary gossip that had frightened her a day ago.
‘I cannot wait to get away from here,’ her mother said, taking the cloth with an accusatory sniff. ‘But it will have to be back to Somerset. I can never show my face in London again. If your father were here...’
Things would be even worse, she was sure. ‘He is not,’ Abby said so bluntly that her mother paused in her crying. ‘Nor will he be, until his money runs out and his mistress tires of his moods.’
‘Abigail, you are not—’
‘Supposed to speak of such things?’ she finished. ‘I think it is time we did, Mother. The chances are good that we will have only each other for company for a very long time. I fail to see how hoping for Father’s return will make things any better for either of us.’
‘But what choice do we have?’ her mother demanded. ‘A woman without a man is nothing in this society.’
‘Then we shall have to create a new society, just for ourselves. Perhaps Lady Beverly will join us, for she seems to have little use for men.’ She bit her tongue, for she had not intended to reveal secrets.
Fortunately, her mother remained oblivious. ‘She will have Danforth, again, now that you have so publicly left the field of battle.’
‘She has no intention of marrying him,’ Abby said, easing the subject away from the truth. ‘It is proof that survival without men is possible.’
‘But you have no intention of becoming a kept woman,’ her mother said. Then her tears stopped. ‘You don’t, do you?’
‘No, Mama,’ she said. Because of Benedict, she had the necessary knowledge, but no inclination to do such a thing with any other man in the world.
‘That is some comfort,’ her mother said, sighing. ‘It is possible, when one is in love, to make a foolish mistake. But one should not make a habit of it.’
It was forgiveness, after a fashion, and Abby accepted it. ‘If there is any chance that I might still find a husband, I will insist that you come to my house, and stay as long as you want.’
‘That would be nice,’ her mother said. Her tone was wistful, but compared to everything else she had said, it sounded practically rebellious. ‘I don’t suppose, now that you have spurned him so publicly, the Duke will offer to do right by you.’
Abby sat down beside her and patted her hand again. ‘I do not think so, Mama.’ He had been willing to forgive one ruined offer and had seemed ready to forgive the second one, after her confession. But even patient men learned not to bother after being turned down a third time.
‘Then you should not have spoken,’ her mother said. ‘If you did not get a husband out of it, it did you no good at all.’
‘It prevented him from duelling with someone to protect me,’ she replied, feeling her throat tighten in fear of what might have happened. ‘I could not bear it if he had been hurt on my account or hurt someone else and been forced to flee to the Continent.’ She swallowed back a sob of her own. ‘Frankly, Mama, I cannot imagine it is worth living in a country that did not have him in it.’
Now, it was her mother’s turn to comfort. ‘Do you love him so very much, then?’
Abby pulled out the spare handkerchief she had hidden up her own sleeve, balled it in her fist and then pressed it to her own face. Her affirmative answer came out in a wet gulp.
Now, her mother’s arms were around her. ‘My dear, I am so sorry. If we are able to find another man to have you, you must not make that mistake again. It is easier to be married when one does not love. One can put up with a surprising amount of difficulty when the heart is not engaged.’
If anything, this advice made her want to cry even harder. ‘Oh, Mama, I am so sorry.’ She had always assumed that, at some point, there had been genuine affection between her parents. But it appeared that their marriage had been empty from the beginning. ‘Now that I have felt what it is like, I cannot imagine living the rest of my life with a man I do not love.’
Her mother shook her head. ‘I knew it was dangerous, matching someone like you w
ith a man like Danforth. You are an idealist, my dear. And he is far too easy to love.’
‘But I did not,’ she insisted. ‘Not until coming here.’
‘If you’d had no feelings for him, you would have gone willingly to the altar when you had the chance,’ her mother said, with a sad smile.
‘I could not have loved him,’ she insisted. ‘How could I? We barely knew each other.’
‘You loved what you wanted him to be,’ her mother replied. ‘And you left him when he disappointed you.’
Then she had come to know him and found that he was just what she’d hoped: faithful, honourable, dependable and kind. His only flaw was that he was so far above the problems she faced that he could not be made to understand them. So, she had left him again.
‘I disappointed him as well,’ she said, hoping that he was not as bothered by the break as she was. ‘He wanted someone stronger than I could ever be.’
‘In the end, darling, we can be only what we are, flawed and all too human.’ Then, she smiled and patted her daughter’s hand, just as Abby had done for her. ‘We will manage somehow, I expect.’
Abby nodded, not really believing.
‘We will go on as we have been. Your father will come home. He always does. It shall be just the three of us again. He will find out what has happened here eventually, of course. But I will see to it that we do not discuss the matter, if you do not wish to.’ Which probably meant that her mother would take the brunt of the ranting and raving.
Abby had been hoping that her mother might be strong enough to escape on her own and all the while her mother had been looking to her for rescue. She had been waiting for that happy moment when she might live in the shadow of a better marriage made by her daughter. But now, because of what she had done, home would be even worse. ‘I have failed you,’ she said.
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